CHINA!!!

For those of you who don’t know (which I don’t think is anyone since I was so excited I think I told the world!!), Korea celebrated Chuseok, which is similar to the American Thanksgiving last week. Since my school gave us 3 days off and there was a weekend we had 5 days off which allowed me to go to China! As soon as Caroline and I realized that we had this vacation, we booked our plane tickets to Beijing and applied for Chinese Visas. (Now I have TWO Visas in my passport! This makes me SOOOO excited! Oh the little things….) Three friends from work were also going to China so we made sure we were on the same flight which was fun. At 4am on Thursday, Caroline and I walked 15 minutes from our house to the school where we met Prairie and Katelyn. We took a five minute taxi ride to get to the bus station, a four hour long bus ride to get the airport, and had a 3 hour long wait until our plane flew out. Finally we got on the plane, so excited to be leaving finally for China, but then we just sat. And sat. And sat some more. Finally, about an hour and a half later we took off and were headed to China. The flight was short and only took an hour and forty five minutes. Thank goodness! I was over the whole traveling thing!

One of their friends, who is Chinese and from Beijing but also works at a hogwan in Gwangju was already on vacation in Beijing and agreed to pick us up at the airport and drive us to our hostels and hotels. Caroline and I decided to stay in a hostel over a hotel like our friends because hostels are ridiculously cheap in China and I think they are super sweet so why not. Our hostel cost us only $9 a night and that was the jacked up price because it was the 60^th anniversary for the People’s Republic of China. Can’t beat that price that’s for sure. AND it was actually a pretty nice place that had a restaurant on the main floor that served Western style foods. We quickly dropped off our stuff and headed to Prairie and Katelyn’s hotel. They dropped off their stuff and then we headed to this little art street. It was pretty cool. Not a whole bunch was open but we were able to go inside some buildings and check out some cool art and take some fun pictures.

From Art Street, we headed to a lake. Around the lake there are many bars, restaurants, and souvenir shops. We ate a fancy restaurant but sat outside. The weather was perfect. I had some real Chinese Sweet and Sour Chicken. It was absolutely delicious and similar but about ten times better than what we call by the same name in the U.S.. Dinner was fantastic and pretty cheap… well, if you don’t count the $40 sitting fee we ended up having to pay for no reason. (And that was after Alan argued with the people about how we were not told about this fee and how we shouldn’t have to pay for it. We got it half price. Can you imagine an $80 sitting fee??!!!!) Anyways, so after dinner we just walked around the lake and kinda just hung out. It was cool seeing Chinese lanterns and stuff lit up everywhere. I am not sure if this was for the celebration that day or not, but it was sweet nonetheless.

Friday morning we got up early and met Katelyn, Prairie and Alan. We were headed for The Great Wall. An hour and a half later we got to a non-touristy section of the wall. Katelyn and Alan stayed there because they did not want to hike The Great Wall, while an old Chinese man drove Caroline, Prairie, and me in a very old little toaster van to a different section of the wall. When we were dropped off we were told the hike would be about 3 hours long. However, once we started hiking we were told it was actually a 4-hour hike and with all of our picture taking it took about 4 ½ hours. It was sooooo breathtaking! The view was incredible and the weather was perfect! It was sunny, clear blue skies, the mountains were so beautiful and you could see the wall for miles! The wall itself was pretty awesome. Parts of it looked like they had just been redone, while most of it looked like it had never been touched. It was a rather challenging hike because of the so many stairs, ups and downs, and crumbling stones but something I would definitely love to do again. I posted pictures on facebook and as much as I would like to tell you that the pictures I took could show you how spectacular The Great Wall is, my pictures don’t even do it justice. I skyped my parents after coming home from China and my dad asked me “I’ve seen your pictures now. Is it still worth going?” My response was “ABSOLUTELY!!!!” The Great Wall is definitely something everyone should go and see, and in my opinion, hike. Oh and did I mention that when we finally got to the end of our hike, we met up with Alan and Katelyn on part of the wall and took a zipline down. That’s right- I ziplined down The Great Wall. That was also quite an amazing experience and soooo much fun!! If I ever go again (which I just might do with my family at the end of my contract here!! J) I would love to take another mode of transportation down, such as the bobsled. That option also seemed like it would be super fun. Who would have ever thought there would have been such fun ways to go down?!

After a full day of hiking, we got something to eat and then headed to The Silk Market. Before we got there, however, we stopped at a place called “The Place”. It was just a square like place but it had a super cool moving water picture thingie that I can’t really explain. I will let the picture do the talking. Anyways, it was pretty cool and we got some fun pictures.

Then we went to the Silk Market. This is a 7 story building filled with a million and one vendors. Each floor has a theme and everyone on that floor sells pretty much the same thing. It’s just a matter of who you think you can bargain with the best and who will give you the best deal. Think Mexico but way way more hardcore, if that’s possible. The vendors would literally grab you and push you in to their shop, shove stuff into your hands and then feed you lines about how much you needed the item. The vendors were all around my age, but they were FANTASTIC at what they did. They were all Chinese but could all speak at least 2 other languages pretty well- English and Spanish. It was amazing the phrases they knew and how convincing they were at trying to get you to pay way way way too much for something. Some of them would say things like “What’s your final price. No joking now. I am serious. Don’t be funny and try to go so low.” Others would say stuff like “I can’t give you it for that price or otherwise I will not be here tomorrow when you come back because my boss will have killed me!” Between these lines and calling me beautiful, it was hard to keep in mind that everything was way overpriced in hopes of me paying and that I needed to bargain hardcore if I wanted a fair deal. By bargain hardcore I mean you could often get them to go about 70% cheaper than their initial asking price. I did pretty well though and I don’t feel like I got ripped off- or at least I don’t think. Although, I was converting everything from Chinese Yuan to Korean Won to American Dollars all in my head, so who knows, but I think I did well. I paid what I thought was fair and did sooo much bargaining. Who knows if I could have got things for less, but I was happy with my purchases and the price I got them at in the end so everyone won. It was loads of fun!

The next day, Prairie, Katelyn and Alan left for Shanghai since they had been to Beijing before and Caroline and I set off for some sight seeing. We went to Tiananmen Square and The Forbidden City. So did the rest of China. I guess because China was celebrating their 60^th anniversary of Communism, every family in China thought they should go visit their roots or something or least all go out because the streets, sidewalk, and subway was ridiculously crowded. By this I mean, you couldn’t really walk, you shuffled along with the crowd at its pace. And on the subway, there were police pushing people on and holding them in while the doors closed almost all the way at which point they would quickly pull out their hand and the train would begin to go. It was nuts. Caroline and I felt like squashed bugs in the subway as well as movie stars because people stared hardcore at the two of us. It wasn’t until we stepped out on to the streets that we really felt like celebrities though. EVERYONE took pictures of us or with us. One person would get up enough courage to ask for a picture with us and then it wouldn’t be a second later before we had a line behind them of people wanting to take pictures with us. We took about 20 pictures on the streets on our way to the Forbidden City and about 20 more once we got it. It was nuts! It started out kinda fun and we liked the attention but it soon became frustrating because we couldn’t get anywhere without being stopped and we couldn’t do our own sightseeing and picture taking.

The Forbidden City was pretty awesome though and exactly how I pictured China. The buildings were detailed and had dragons and other animals in front. The roofs were made of bricks that looked almost gold in color and on the corners of the roof there were animals that stood for different things such as protection and stuff I think is what I heard. It was really cool to admire all of the details and fun to say that I was in a Palace. This took most of the day especially with fighting the crowds, but we did manage to see some of the floats that were in the parade from the previous day and just explore Beijing a little. We finished the night by playing badmitten in front of our hostel.

The next day we went to Olympic park. It was definitely WAY less crowded than the Forbidden City which was AWESOME but the number of people who wanted to take our picture was still the same. We stopped for many many photos with Chinese families, kids, groups of friends, individuals, etc before we just kept on walking and pretending we were oblivious to what was going on. Caroline and I went inside the Water Cube and the Bird’s Nest, which was super cool. It was neat to be in the places where so many people from so many countries won Gold Medals the year before. We didn’t end up going inside the gymnastics/other sports building but we did take several pictures outside. The buildings were all just so cool from even the outside. We spent several hours there and have some great pictures.

After Olympic Park, we went to Llama Temple. I have never been to a temple so this was really neat. Store after store on our walk to the temple sold incense but Caroline and I did not realize why until after we got inside. Each time you pass a Buddha, you stop in front of him, light 3 incense and then pray and bow three times to him before offering your incense to him by putting it in a fire at his feet. It was cool to see the Chinese people doing this even though I did not believe in who they were worshiping. It was just something unique to see.

After the Temple, Caroline and I set off to get massages. We saw a sign in front of our hostel that read massages for 28 Yuan, which is about $5 so we were all about it! We were hoping for back massages but they only offered foot massages at this place. After hiking the Great Wall the day before and all of the walking we had been doing, we were pretty excited. We chose some milk something or another to have our feet soaked in. While our feet soaked we got mini shoulder, neck, back massages. It was sweet. Then we got our hour long foot massages which were pretty amazing and surprisingly the lady even found a big knot in one of my feet that she rubbed out and made feel better. At the end we were asked if we wanted some foot cupping done and we said sure, why not since it was less than a dollar and it sounded cool. Basically the lady came at us with some glass cups, a stick and some fire starting fluid. She lit the stick on fire then put the fire in the cup and then twisted the cup on to our feet to make it suction cup on. It was quite strangey. And at the end our feet did not feel any different but it was a funny experience and Caroline and I both laughed a lot.

After our massages, we had just enough time to get some dinner at our hostel before we were picked up to go to an acrobatics show we had bought tickets to. This show was AWESOME. I think I really enjoyed it a lot because it reminded me of circus. And I miss circus a lot. So many of the acts were the same as those at FSU except way more hardcore which made me laugh cause I thought our show was impressive! The girls were ridiculously limber and crazy strong and the guys were unbelievably strong and pretty flexible as well. I took so many pictures until I was told I was not allowed to be taking pictures. Oops. It was neat to go to a Chinese acrobatics show because quite frankly this is something I think of when I think of China because their gymnasts are always soooo good at the Olympics. What a great way to end the night!

The next morning we met up with Prairie, Alan and Katelyn and made one last quick stop at the Silk Market to get last minute purchases. Then we went to a fancy restaurant so we could eat the famous Beijing Peking Duck. You could watch them cook the duck in this fire pit thing. Then it was taken to be cut. The head was cut off and the remaining part of the duck was sliced and served. It was served on two duck platters and the head was placed carefully on the one so that you could see it was a whole that that you were getting. I didn’t know what to expect, but I absolutely LOVED it. Duck is delicious!!!

After lunch we went back to the lake to see it during the day. We shopped for a bit before renting a boat for an hour. The boat ride was super fun and the scenery was really pretty which provided us the opportunity to take several more China pictures before we headed home. After our boat ride Alan drove us to the airport and we were on our way home. We finally got home after the time change and 4 hour bus ride home at 2am. Caroline and I had to wake up the next morning at 8am which was a little rough, but it was definitely worth it. China was a blast and I REALLY want to go back sometime!!

As I am sure everyone expected, this post was RIDICULOUSLY LONG! Like I said, you better just get used to it. Hehe!! I miss everyone tons and think we need to stop slacking and get to talking on Skype WAY more… k thanks. Miss you all!!

p.s- if you were wondering, this post is 4 ½ pages single spaced on a Word document (without pictures) and took me about 3 hours to write! J That’s right, I love you guys that much.